Promise Me
by savemesalzburg
Summary: Gale has something to say to Katniss before he loses her to Peeta forever. Slightly AU.


**Promise Me  
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**by savemesalzburg  
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**Author's Note: Hey all. :3 I know you're all eagerly waiting an update to Contre Qui, Katniss. And it's coming. But in the mean time while I work on that, I'm giving you all a little oneshot. This is a Gale/Katniss oneshot, and normally I'm not one to be interested in that pairing since I'm a raging Everlark fan, but I am having a bit of a lapse and felt like writing Gale/Katniss. This is slightly AU, however not so much as my other story. I'm pretty much cutting out the Quarter Quell in this one, and Peeta and Katniss are going ahead and getting married. This story takes place the night before their wedding, and Gale has a few things to say to her before he loses her forever. Kind of smutty. :3  
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**DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Hunger Games.  
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_"Just please, please, promise me somewhere dark and deep in your heart that you'll keep a tiny place for me where no one new can reach." - Promise Me, Kill Hannah_

For the first time since my family moved to Victor's Village, I was completely alone in my house. Someone had come running all the way from the Seam begging my mother for help delivering a baby, and she had taken Prim with her for assistance. I had no idea how long they would be gone. It had been early afternoon when they had left, and it was well into the evening hours without any sign of them. I assumed it would be close to midnight before they returned, and that was alright with me. I would spend my last night of freedom alone and miserable.

Sitting cross-legged on my bed, it seemed all I could do was stare at my reflection in the dark window. I looked at my plain pants and shirt, my plain braid, my plain Seam-gray eyes staring back at me from the windowpane. This was my last night as a plain girl from the Seam. This was my last night as Katniss Everdeen, my last night being me. Because come this time tomorrow night, I would be Mrs. Peeta Mellark. I would no longer be me.

My ears, trained from years of hunting, were the only reason that I heard the door opening downstairs. My entire body tensed, and I didn't breathe for what felt like hours. Rational thinking would tell me that it was only my mother and Prim returning home from a day of long, hard work. But as talented as they were in healing, neither of them were very good at staying quiet. And whoever had just entered my house hadn't made a sound since they opened the door. I darted off of my bed soundlessly and pulled my bow and quiver of arrows from my closet. I was standing with an arrow loaded and pointed in the general direction of any possible attacker's vital organs when the door opened. I was glad that I hadn't yet released the arrow, because in front of me stood someone that I never expected to see again.

"Trying to kill me, Catnip?" Gale's face was smug with amusement as I lowered my weapon and placed it, along with the quiver of arrows, on my bed. "I knew brides were jumpy, but I didn't know they were homicidal." As much as his comment was meant to be funny, I could hear the hurt in his voice and see it in his eyes. I was currently speechless, wondering what exactly brought him all the way to my house the night before I was supposed to be married to Peeta. Especially since I haven't spoken to him in over a month. I hadn't even given him an actual wedding invitation. Instead, I left an envelope with Hazelle with a note inside that read simply "_I'm getting married on the 21st. Come or don't. -Catnip_" I didn't expect him to be there tomorrow, and honestly, I didn't want him there. I didn't want to see the pain in his eyes as I said my vows to someone else. It would only make my own shackles weigh heavier.

"Gale..." was all that I managed to say. But what else was there to say? Actually, there was a lot. But, weighed down with my own misery, I could only think of the simple things; things that I've known for my entire life. Things like his name.

"Is that all you have to say to me after not speaking to me for a month?" he asked, stepping forward. I instinctively stepped backwards towards the window, and I know I shouldn't have, because it made the pained look on his face even more obvious.

"No...I just, wasn't expecting you, is all..." I moved my bow and arrows from my bed to the floor and gestured to it. "Sit?" I was trying to draw the attention away from the fact that I had just tried to run away from him.

"I don't need to sit. You might, though," he said, taking another step towards me. This time I didn't move away from him. "I came here to say one thing, Catnip." Before I knew what was going on, I felt his rough palm on my cheek and his strong body inches away from mine. His fingers moved under my chin and tilted my face up to look at him. Our eyes met, and it felt for a short time that I was looking at my own reflection in the windows again. The pain in his eyes was greater than mine, and I felt a pang in my chest from it. Suddenly, though, I knew what he was going to say. And suddenly, I wish he had never come here.

"Gale, please don't..." I whispered. My body was trembling, and instead of moving away, he took that as his cue to slide a strong arm around my waist and press me close to him in a warm embrace. He had made the right decision before I had even wanted him to do it. But that was the way that it had always been with us. Gale knew what I wanted before I even wanted it. He knew what I felt before I even felt it. I had realized long ago that working as one person ran deeper than just hunting in the woods.

"I have to..." he breathed into my hair. I could feel my body relax in his arms. All of the nerves that had been on a live wire since the day that Peeta proposed to me just seemed to die out. I felt weightless against him. I felt comfortable. I felt right, for the first time since he had kissed me in the woods. And that scared me.

"You should just go..." I pulled away, instantly turning my back to him. Consciously, I pulled my curtains closed. I could never be too careful these days.

"Not until I tell you that I love you."

And that was when my heart began to bleed. It bled for Gale, it bled for me, and it bled for the life that we could have had if the Games had never existed. If I had never had to volunteer for Prim. A life that wasn't run by the Capitol. A life that told a story about two people that met in the woods one day, became best friends the next, and fell in love years later.

"I told you not to say it!" The anguish in my heart had quickly turned to anger. That's the way it was when something hurt as much as this did. I had to release it from my body somehow, and the only way to release it right now was through anger. Through screaming. Through creating a spark and lighting it on fire.

"Why? Because you're too much of a pawn to the Capitol that you can't say it back?" he countered.

"I'm not the Capitol's pawn!" I yelled, wheeling around to face him. The tears begin to pool in the corners of my eyes, but I refused to let them be seen yet.

"Then say it!" he yelled back. "Tell me you love me too, because I know damn well that you do!"

"Goddammit, Gale! It's more complicated than that!"

"It's not complicated at all!"

"You don't understand what's at stake here!"

"Nothing's at stake, just say it!"

"No!"

"Tell me that you love me!"

"Fine, I love you Gale!"

The room fell silent, and the first tear ran down my cheek. All we did was stare at each other. Neither of us moved. The only sound was the thumping of both of our hearts from the adrenaline of our latest argument. He made the first move, crossing the distance that had come between us in a few short steps. One of his arms snaked around my waist, the other tipping my chin up, and before I knew it his lips were on mine. The sensation was different than it had been in the past. His lips had become more chapped than they were the last time they met mine, and there was more force behind them. I could do nothing more than surrender and kiss him back, because that was what my both my body and my heart wanted. My mind was outnumbered, and therefore its opinion disregarded.

Our kisses stayed innocent for awhile until I felt his tongue on my bottom lip, gently requesting entry into my mouth. I obliged, tasting his tongue as it glided over mine. The taste of his kiss was nothing less than I expected. It tasted familiar, like home. My heart was racing at this point, igniting my nerves once again. But this time it felt different. My body was no longer weighed down by stress, but alive with lust. It was plain and simple. I wanted Gale right now more than I wanted anyone in the world. I pressed my slim frame close to his muscled body, feeling the heat of his body mix with mine. It felt like not only I was on fire, but so was he. I felt him press me against the wall beside my window, breaking the kiss to look at my face. We were both breathless, and again our eyes matched. The need for me that I saw in his eyes mirrored the need that I felt running from my heart, through my veins, into my stomach, and finally pooling in my groin.

"What are we doing, Catnip?" he asked me, running a calloused finger down my smooth cheek. I knew that was his way of making sure I wanted this as much as he did, but did he even need to ask? Wasn't it obvious in the way we looked at each other? But I guess it made sense that he wanted verbal confirmation that this was exactly what I wanted.

"We're doing exactly what it looks like we're doing," I responded cryptically. Another kiss, and we were tripping over one another on the way to my bed. Not even two people as graceful as ourselves were immune to the side-effects that lust left on the body. The weakness in the knees, the fire in the heart, and mostly, the numbness in the groin. I had never felt something this intense before, and I knew right now that all I wanted was for it to be satisfied. The moral effects of what we were about to do would set in later, the whole "I'm going to hate myself in the morning" deal. He gently settled me down before kneeling over me and lifting my shirt over my head, watching my face the entire time. Much like in the woods, this was a time when no words were necessary. We could watch each other, feel each other, and know exactly what was going through the other's mind. His hands touched the smooth skin of my stomach, and I felt every pore come alive beneath his fingers. Goosebumps littered my torso, not only from the loss of my garment but from the feeling of his hands on my bare skin. His shirt was the next thing to come off. I watched his face with every move I made, and it wasn't until after we had stared into one another's eyes for several minutes that we broke eye contact and took in the sight before us. I knew that I didn't look like much of anything, but laying eyes on Gale's muscular torso set me on fire. The muscles of his arms were strong and firm, holding up his strong body over mine. His chest was chisled to my liking; not too much, but enough to prove that even I am only human.

Our eyes locked again, and I saw his hunger had grown since the last time I looked into them. Adrenaline rushed through my body, and before I became too submissive, I sat up and pushed Gale over so that he was now beneath me. I was seated on his lap, my thighs squeezing his hips a little too tightly, earning a deep grunt from the boy, no, man, that lay beneath me. Without hesitation he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled my face down to his, kissing me forcefully. Our tongues began to tease each other again, and I felt his hand slide from my neck to the clasp of my bra, managing to free me of the garment in a matter of seconds. It hit the floor, and I learned for the first time what it felt like to have someone's skin pressed against my own. I ignored the heat pooling on my cheeks and focused more on the way that Gale's warm chest felt pressed against my own. It was funny how our bodies seemed to know exactly what to do, but I guess that giving and receiving sexual pleasure is something that is written into your DNA from birth. I got the urge to hear him grunt again and began to think of things that would cause him to make that noise for me again. It came to me quickly, and before I could comprehend it, I was grinding my hips into his.

His moan was so deep that he had to stop kissing me to breathe after it, instead burying his head in my neck and lightly suckling on my shoulder. He knew well enough not to leave a hickey, seeing as that wouldn't go over well if Peeta found it. His arousal became more and more evident the longer that I grinded on him. Not only could I feel his erection against me but I heard his breathing become harder and faster, its warmth spreading onto my skin in quicker intervals.

"God, Catnip, will you just let me have you already?" he rasped into my ear, kissing the skin beneath it. Goosebumps ran down my torso again from feeling his hot breath on my skin.

"Just give me a minute," I responded. My hands quickly moved to unbutton his pants, sliding them and his underwear off as quickly as possible. The fact that Gale was naked and laying underneath me didn't register in the moral part of my mind. All that I could think about was how badly I wanted him and how badly I wanted to make him moan as much as possible. Without a second thought I grabbed his shaft in my hand and began to move my hand up and down, my thumb occasionally brushing the head in a taunting manner. His moans were almost too much to handle. His strong hands gripped the blankets on the bed beneath him, his hips buckling and twitching under my tantilizing grip.

"Careful, Catnip," he said. And I knew it wasn't because I was hurting him, it was because he wanted this time to last. He didn't want to finish so quickly all at once. He wanted to savor it, and he wanted to savor me for as long as I could still belong to him. I stopped and he sat up, switching positions so I was once again beneath me. By now my groin was throbbing so much that I didn't think I could take it anymore. There were very few times when I had felt anything like this, and this was the only time where he had been the cause of it. Or really, the only time that I had let him be the cause of it. My pants and underwear were off as quickly as his were, and there I was, naked beneath him. But he could look at nothing but my face and my eyes, and that was how I knew how deeply he loved me. I touched his face gently, and he took that as permission to let his eyes look over me hungrily. I knew all he wanted to do was get lost inside of me, but he managed to restrain himself. I felt him slide first one finger, and then two inside of me. I kept quiet, even though it felt like he was ripping me apart in some places. I could feel that I was dripping wet, and it was honestly embarrassing to a certain extent. After he had used his fingers to stretch me out a little, he began to move them in and out of me quickly. His thumb searched my wet folds for the small bundle of nerves that resided there and once he found it he began to rub it.

The amount of pleasure that it gave me was dangerous. I shouted loudly, at nothing in particular. I felt my stomach burning with pleasure, and before long I had to give in. I arched my back and finished with a soft moan of pleasure. After I had rode out my orgasm, I looked up at Gale with soft eyes and pink cheeks, and I knew that he was dying for the same release that I had just experienced. Silently, he sat up and pulled me onto his lap. The look in his eyes was a question to me, asking if I really wanted to do this.

"Yes," I said, and then, "Promise me something - " but before I could continue, he already knew what I was going to say.

"I won't let you get pregnant, Catnip," he said, brushing some hair off of my sweaty forehead. "Trust me." A kiss on his neck was my only response, and I let my cheek rest on his shoulder. I breathed in the scent of his skin, mindlessly pressing my lips wherever I could reach. He wrapped both of his arms around me, holding me the way he did before I left District 12 to participate in the Hunger Games. Like he was never going to see me again. My legs wound themselves tightly around his hips. It felt like hours before he finally slid himself inside of me. I couldn't suppress a low grunt of pain. Two fingers had been nothing compared to what I felt right now. But he was gentle, and he was slow. His hands ran up and down my back and he waited for a kiss from me as consent to begin thrusting. It didn't hurt for long. Soon enough I felt the warmth slowly begin to pool in my stomach again.

"Gale," I breathed, and I felt the goosebumps beneath my mouth, even though he was covered in sweat.

"Yes Catnip?" he breathed into my hair.

"I love you."

"I know."

We were silent after that, with the exception of our moans of pleasure. I felt his hand on the back of my neck and I picked his head up on my shoulder. The warmth in my stomach was escalating fast, and I knew it was only moments before it took control of me.

"I want to look at you..." he grunted. And I knew he meant that he wanted to see me, to look into my eyes when he finished. I took his lips in my own briefly before pressing my forehead against his so that again, I saw my own reflection in his eyes. My breathing hitched in my chest and I felt the warmth unleash itself all over my body. His hands were there to support me as arched my back into him. He emitted a deep, breathy moan and I knew that he hadn't been able to resist the feeling of me tightening around him. But he got what he wanted. He was looking straight into my eyes when he finished, and before I had seen stars, I saw him. I saw Gale sweaty, vulnerable, and in love. We fell back onto the bed next to each other.

"I can't stay long..." he murmured, taking my braid in his hands and running his fingers over it.

"I know..." I whispered, pressing my body against him. We were silent for a few moments before he sat up and began to gather his clothes. His back was turned to me when he got dressed, but he spoke to me nonetheless. I took the time to gather at least my underwear and shirt from the floor and pull them onto my sweaty body.

"I need you to promise me something now, Catnip."

"Anything."

"I want you to keep me in your heart, in a place no one else can reach," he turned to me. "Not even him."

I didn't have to say anything for him to know I would. Before leaving, he told me to lay down and he kissed my forehead.

The last time I ever saw him, he was sliding out my bedroom door, as silent and elusive as a phantom.


End file.
